My Interrupted Flight Toward the Himalaya

my uninterrupted flight toward the himalayas leave your classroom on some following day for our flight. Precautions were necessary, as Ananta exercised a vigilant eye. He was determined to foil the plans of escape which he suspected were uppermost in my mind. The amulet, like a spiritual yeast, was silently at work within me. Amidst the Himalayan snows i hoped to find the master whose face often appeared to me in visions the family was living now in cal meditations and prepared my mind for the divine search, the memorable morning arrived with inauspicious rain.

Hearing the wheels of Amar's carriage in the road, I hastily tied together a blanket, a pair of sandals, Lahiri Mahasaya's picture, a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a string of prayer beads, and two loincloths. This bundle I threw from my third-story window i ran down the steps and passed my uncle buying fish at the door what is the excitement his gaze robed suspiciously over my person the lane. Retrieving my bundle, I joined Amar with conspiratorial caution. We drove to Chudney Chowk, a merchandise centre. For months we had been saving our tiffin money to buy English clothes.

Knowing that my clever brother could easily play the part of a detective, we thought to outwit him by European garb. On the way to the station, we stopped for my cousin jotin gush whom i called jatinda he was a new convert longing for a guru in the himalayas he donned the new suit we had in readiness well camouflage we hoped shoes. I led my companions to a shop, displaying rubber-soled footwear. Articles of leather gotten only through the slaughter of animals must be absent on this holy trip.

I halted on the street to remove the leather cover from my Bhagavad Gita, and the leather straps from my English-made Sulatopi helmet. At the station we bought tickets to Burdwan, where we planned to transfer for Hardwar in the Himalayan foothills. As soon as the train, like ourselves, was in flight, I gave utterance to a few of my glorious anticipations. Just imagine, I ejaculated, we should be initiated by the masters and experience the trance of cosmic consciousness. Our flesh will be charged with such magnetism that wild animals of the Himalayas will come tamely near us.

Tigers will be no more than meek house-cats awaiting our caresses. This remark, picturing a prospect I considered entrancing, both metaphorically and literally, brought an enthusiastic smile from Amar. But Jatinda averted his gaze, directing it through the window at the scampering landscape. Let the money be divided in three portions. Jatinda broke a long silence with this suggestion. Each of us should buy his own ticket at Burdwan. Thus no one at the station will surmise that we are running away together. I unsuspectingly agreed. At dusk our train stopped at Burdwan.

Jatinda entered the ticket office. Amar and I sat on the platform. We waited fifteen minutes, then made unavailing inquiries. Searching in all directions, we shouted Jatinda's name with the urgency of fright, but he had faded into the dark unknown surrounding the little station. I was completely unnerved, shocked to a peculiar numbness that god would countenance this depressing episode the romantic occasion of't you stand the little test of a treacherous companion through amma's suggestion of a divine test my heart steadied itself sweetmeats, sitabog, food for the goddess, and mutichur, nuggets of sweet pearl.

In a few hours we entrained for Hardwar via Barayli. Changing trains at Mogil Saray, we discussed a vital matter as we waited on the platform. Amar, we may soon be closely questioned by railroad officials. I'm not underrating my brother's ingenuity. No matter what the outcome, I will not speak untruth. All I ask of you, Mukunda, is to keep still. Don't laugh or grin while I'm talking. At this moment a European station agent accosted me. He waved a telegram, whose import I immediately grasped. Are you running away from home in anger?

No. I was glad his choice of words permitted me to make emphatic reply. Not anger, but divinest melancholy was responsible, I knew, for my unconventional behaviour. The official then turned to Amar. The duel of wits that followed hardly permitted me to maintain the counselled stoic gravity. Where is the third boy? The man injected a full ring of authority into his voice come on speak the truth sir i notice you are wearing eyeglasses can't you see up a third companion. The official, noticeably disconcerted by this impertinence, sought a new field of attack.

What is your name? I'm called Thomas. I'm the son of an English mother and a converted Christian Indian father. What is your friend's name? I call him Thompson. By this time my inward mirth had reached a zenith. I unceremoniously made for the train, whistling for departure, a mile followed with the official, who was credulous and obliging enough to put us into a European compartment. It evidently pained him to think of two half-English boys travelling in the section allotted to natives. After his polite exit I lay back on the seat and laughed uncontrollably.

My friend wore an expression of blithe satisfaction at having outwitted a veteran European official. On the platform I had contrived to read the telegram from my brother, it went thus. Three Bengali boys in English clothes running away from home towards Hardwar via Moggleserai. Please detain them until my arrival ample reward for your services amar i told you not to leave marked time-tables in your home sheepishly acknowledged the thrust we halted briefly in barayli where dvorka prasad awaited us with a telegram from ananta my old friend tried valiantly to detain us while our train stood in a station that night and i was half asleep amma was awakened by another questioning official he too fell a victim to the hybrid charms of thomas and thompson the distance.

We dashed through the station and entered the freedom of city crowds. Our first act was to change into native costume, as Ananta had somehow penetrated our European disguise. A premonition of capture weighed on my mind. Deeming it advisable to leave Hardwar at once, we bought tickets to proceed north to Rishikesh, a soil long hallowed by feet of many masters. I'd already boarded the train, while Amar lagged on the platform. He was brought to an abrupt halt by a shout from a policeman. Our unwelcome guardian escorted us to a station bungalow and took charge of our money.

He explained courteously that it was his duty to hold us until my elder brother arrived learning that the truant's destination had been the himalayas the officer related a strange story i see you are crazy about saints officer and I first encountered him five days ago. We were patrolling by the Ganges on a sharp lookout for a certain murderer. Our instructions were to capture him alive or dead. He was known to be muskerading as a sadhu, in order to rob pilgrims. A short way before us we spied a figure which resembled the description of the criminal.

He ignored our command to stop. We ran to overpower him. Approaching his back I wielded my axe with tremendous force the man's right arm was severed almost completely from his body without our cry or any glance at the ghastly wound the stranger astonishingly continued his swift pace of him he spoke quietly i am not the murderer you are seeking i was deeply mortified to see i had injured the person of a divine-looking sage prostrating myself at his feet i implored his pardon and offered my turban-cloth to staunch the heavy spurts of blood just an understandable mistake on your part the saint regarded me kindly run along and don't reproach yourself the beloved mother has taken care of me he pushed his dangling arm into its stump and lo it adhered the blood inexplicably ceased to flow come to me under yonder tree in three days and you will find me fully healed.

Thus you will feel no remorse. Yesterday my brother officer and I went eagerly to the designated spot. The sadhu was there and allowed us to examine his arm. It bore no scar or trace of hurt. I am going via Rishikesh to the Himalayan solitudes. He blessed us as he departed quickly. I feel that my life has been uplifted through his sanctity. The officer concluded with a pious ejaculation. His experience had obviously moved him beyond his usual depths. With an impressive gesture he handed me a printed clipping about the miracle.

In the usual garbled manner of the sensational type of newspaper, not missing alas even in India, the reporter's version was slightly exaggerated. It indicated that the Saru had been almost decapitated. Amar and I lamented that we had missed the great yogi, who could forgive his persecutor in such a Christ-like way. India, materially poor for the last two centuries, yet has an inexhaustible fund of divine wealth spiritual sky-scrapers may occasionally be encountered by the wayside even by worldly men like this policeman more fortunate than we. He had met an Illumin saint without effort.

Our earnest search had ended, not at the feet of a master, but in a coarse police station, so near the Himalayas, and yet, in our captivity so far, I told Amar I felt doubly impelled to seek freedom.